Published: March 28, 2008 10:40 am      

Foul turn spoils chicken truck’s trip

Speed blamed as chicken rig overturns

San Marcos — An 18-wheeler carrying about 40,000 lbs. of frozen chicken overturned on the Hwy. 21/Hwy. 80 interchange late Thursday morning.

The mishap tied up the roadway for more than seven hours and presented a challenge to wrecker crews trying to right it.

The Sanderson Farms load had been inbound on 21 around 11:30 a.m. taking the right hand curve to inbound 80 when the truck went into a skid and overturned on its left side. The driver, who got out unharmed, was probably taking the curve too fast, said San Marcos Police Sergeant Dave Waugh.

Three oversized wreckers, one brought in from New Braunfels, tried twice to pull the big rig upright but each time a cable snapped.

Mid-afternoon the operation briefly ceased while workers on the scene awaited arrival of an Austin company with airbags to place under the truck; and police opened one lane of the two-lane interchange for a while.

By rush hour wreckers were back at work and both lanes closed. Traffic inbound on 21 into San Marcos had to take Hwy. 80 south and figure out somewhere to turn around.

The truck was en route from Bryan to an HEB warehouse in San Antonio, Waugh said.

Personnel from the county’s Environmental Health Department were standing by to see if the chicken had become contaminated.